


a fairytale ending

by agentmmayy



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Don't Be Fooled By The Title, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, but that kiss tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 19:57:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14625948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentmmayy/pseuds/agentmmayy
Summary: Gripping his hand between both of her own, she pulled it to her chest. It felt real. Her lips pressed to his palm, but she couldn't feel his heartbeat beneath it.





	a fairytale ending

**Author's Note:**

> are you prepared for the angst? this was completely inspired by finally seeing Phil and Melinda kiss in 5x21 and the ending of the episode. hope you enjoy!

The heart monitor echoed in the room, a slow but steady constant in their ever so rapidly changing lives. 

Phil was laying on the table, still clothed, but hooked up to machines. The blood had been cleaned from his mouth. He looked pale, weak, and not at all like the Phil she knew. Melinda had seen him in this position before, from being shot to getting hit hard with the flu but now, there was an aura of defeat around him. 

One second she was staring at his smiling face on the screen, thinking about what she would do to him when he got back. The next, Davis was frantically calling back, his voice rising above the background of Daisy's anguished pleading, alerting them they needed medical on standby. For Phil.

Melinda was leaning against the wall, her arms crossed, and her eyes unmoving from his form. She had stayed after everyone else left the room, even Daisy who had lingered behind before leaving with one last concerned glance to the both of them. 

No one had wanted to leave at first, but Jemma had hiccupped a sob which prompted Fitz to lead her back to their bunk. Deke had followed, and then Mack left, Elena not far behind. Daisy had been the last to leave because of course, she was. She and none of the others tried to make her go with them. They knew Melinda wasn't going to leave Phil's side.

The team was broken, but Phil never failed to pull them back together. 

Melinda crept closer. There was a chair beside the bed as if someone had left it there just for her. But she didn't sit down just yet. Melinda remained standing, her eyes on Phil. He couldn't leave, she knew, but a piece of her was scared he might disappear. It was foolish, but Melinda was scared to let go, to look away.

Instead, her eyes fell to his right hand. 

What once was a semi-deep scratch, as Daisy tearfully told them, had formed into something more gruesome. There were thick black veins, framed with thinner ones, stemming from his heart, crawling down from underneath his rolled-up shirt sleeve to just above his palm. The cut on his wrist was still slowly bleeding, his body not strong enough to begin to heal it. Jemma had wrapped it over and over again with shaking hands. 

Her and Fitz's words from earlier bounced back to the forefront of Melinda's brain. Formula. Save Phil. Centipede serum. Only one. Talbot. Phil. 

They could only pick one.

Phil, or the world? 

Melinda bit back a sob, squeezing her eyes shut as if she was a little girl again and it would make all the bad go away.

A tear fell onto the oxygen mask strapped to Phil's face. He remained unresponsive, the only indication he was alive was his rising and falling chest with each breath he took, aided by the oxygen being pushed into his nostrils. 

With shaky hands, Melinda wiped her tear away from the mask but more fell. One hit his neck, one his cheek, the other, the fabric of his shirt on his collarbone. She watched the moisture darken the fabric as it soaked in.

Was it foolish to think her tears could heal him? That sort of stuff happened in fairytales, but their lives were hardly close to one. 

Scoffing, Melinda wiped at her cheeks. Happy endings were as mythical as the stories they came from. She wouldn't get her happy ending; she never did. But, her eyes darted back up to Phil's face, maybe _they_ would. 

She sat down slowly in the chair, her eyes never leaving Phil. 

They went back to the oxygen mask secured firmly over his mouth and nose. His mouth was partially open. His lips that she had left pink and slightly swollen were now pale.

Her lips still tingled from their kiss in the alien spaceship. It seemed juvenile, like a preteen with a crush, but each time Melinda thought about that kiss, her stomach fluttered. 

She normally didn't like getting manhandled, but the way Phil had pulled her to him sent her heart racing. The thrill she got from their bodies being flush to one another felt like it belonged to a hormonal teenager. They had been chest to chest, hips pressing together, her feet almost on top of his. One arm had wrapped firmly around her waist, the other holding up his shield. If it had been free would he have joined it with the other one? Or cupped her cheek? Threaded his fingers through her hair?

His lips against hers had felt like coming home. It was familiar, but different all at the same time. It sent tingles racing up and down Melinda's spine and a flush to her cheeks as she thought about it. Kissing Phil was pleasant before, but now? Now Melinda understood when people described first kisses as electrifying. 

It wasn't more than a frantic press of lips with a clash of jaw and chin. There was no tongue involved, no teeth, no time to explore where she wanted to go. Still, his lips had captured hers. They had moved over hers in a sure way, and she made sure to kiss him back with the same intensity. The way Phil had pulled her to him and kissed her could have seemed rushed to some, but it was timed perfectly. Melinda had been wanting to kiss him for so long, so when he had pulled her to him, her eyes had automatically darted down to his lips before they were on hers. 

Their kiss was perfect, even as they were being shot at. She could feel Phil replying to her love declaration through the kiss, letting the kiss speak for him. The fact that they were in the midst of fighting aliens and being in danger only heightened their passion. 

It wasn't their first kiss by any means; they had kissed before.

The very first kiss between them happened in their first year at the academy on a dare. The second, undercover when he was trying to unhook her bra. Many more followed in that pattern of being undercover, even up until Bahrain, but none of them held the feelings that this one did. She had noticed the way he leaned into her after they broke, following her as she pulled away. He wanted to kiss her more. Melinda had wanted to kiss him more too. She had wanted to tuck herself back into Phil's arms and get lost in the feeling of his lips against hers, but duty called.

Melinda knew about his kiss with her LMD. It was the only obvious explanation to why he was so jumpy around her straight out of the framework. She knew he lied when he told her that her robot self tried to kill him. As she had said before, he had tells. Besides, Daisy couldn't keep quiet for long and eventually ended up spilling to her.

She wasn't angry, or even the least bit upset at him. Instead, Melinda wished she had been in her LMD's position when it happened. She would give anything to feel his lips against hers once more. Melinda craved to feel his kisses again, even from the brief one they had shared. Now that she had a taste, she was purely addicted. 

Was that the last kiss they would share? Their first yet last? 

They were just getting together, just getting started on making up for thirty years of lost time. He couldn't leave now. She needed him. _Daisy_ needed him. 

If anything, he needed to stay for Daisy. She was still so young, still doubting herself. It didn't help that some members of the team blatantly ignored or didn't follow her rules. Then again, they were all scared, uncertain of what was to come.

Melinda knew Phil had been grooming Daisy to take over ever since she had gotten her powers, and even before then. He had seen something in her, a spark that he nurtured, becoming the father that Daisy never had and she, his daughter. Daisy was a natural born leader. Melinda had seen her in action, recently and in the past years. She could do it, both her and Phil knew, but she just wasn't ready. How could she be? When the only man she knew as a father was dying? 

Melinda's mouth went dry when she opened it to take a shaky breath. 

Phil couldn't leave them, couldn't leave Daisy, but most of all, he couldn't leave her. 

It was selfish and morally wrong to go against his will, but she wasn't willing to lose him. There would never be a universe or instance when she would be. She loved him.

A smile flickered onto Melinda's lips as she remembered his face when she told him. _I love you!_ She had nearly shouted, frustration fueling her. He didn't understand. Didn't he know she loved him? Wasn't it obvious? Why else would she have left her perfectly boring cubicle? 

He might not have heard the words from her or anyone else on the team before, but it was clear through their actions that they loved him. It was clear in the hugs Daisy gave him and how Phil was always the first one she went to for reassurance or guidance. It was clear in the way Fitz had spent hours of hard work, sleepless nights, and research into the prosthetic hand. She could see it in the way Jemma poured over each half foot thick binder of medical records to better understand how he might have been affected by the alien drug. The whole team loved him, even though they didn't directly tell him. 

How could he leave the people he loved? The people who loved him?

Love. It was a concept not many people in their field were lucky enough to come across. Melinda had loved Phil for a long time, ever since the academy, practically. She loved that smirk and his dorky smile whether she had known it or not. 

She thought she could find love with Andrew, and she did, though it wasn't the same. Phil was always the one. Even Andrew had told her the truth she had been denying all along: she loved Phil. It had taken her years to admit it out loud, but she did. Besides, Phil was the wordy one out of the two of them. She was better with actions, always had been, but she was willing to talk since he clearly wasn't understanding.

When they had been thrown into the prison cell on the spaceship, she had thought they would have talked about it, but of course, Phil avoided the topic. Even though it was impossible, Melinda wished she could go back in time, back with him into that little holding cell. Instead of letting him waste time trying to find a way out, she would confront him, and maybe she would have heard her words back. 

Would she ever hear him say he loved her?

Melinda reached over Phil, grabbing his prosthetic hand and pulled it to her. She knew he couldn't feel it, especially not unconscious, but she needed to hold him, even if it was just his hand. 

Gripping his hand between both of her own, she pulled it to her chest. It felt real. Her lips pressed to his palm, but she couldn't feel his heartbeat beneath it. 

Melinda broke, finally allowing herself to cry. 

Her sobs echoed in the empty room, louder than the heartbeat that accompanied them.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading! please let me know what you think. if you want to say hi or drop me a line, you can come visit me on tumblr where I am casualsketchpaintingfan too


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